Turnaround is Fair Play

Hey. This is Ryan. When I got home from church at noon today, I had the unique opportunity to lay in bed and laugh with my wife. "What?" you're asking. "You don't talk with your wife in bed about everything and love each other and blah, blah, blah?"

No. I sleep in my bed and I have a job that drains every ounce of energy out of me, four children that apparently require every milisecond of every hour of every day, a Facebook addiction and a yearbook deadline that will, I'm sure, be responsible for my early death and so I'm exhausted by the time we decide to plop into bed and pass out for about four hours before Clark starts screaming, "me need boob."

Anyway, this conversation that we had reminded me why I fell in love with her. She's funny and thinks I'm hilarious -- which probably was the real draw, if I'm honest. She laughs at what I say and it makes me feel good.

We started talking about our children and their ... um ... quirks. Is that a nice way to say it? Basically, we were trashing on our kids and what bugged us most about them.

We have four wonderful children whom we love and support and all that mushy parent stuff but let's face it. We have lived in an 800-square-foot house for almost three years (and other tiny domiciles for most of our 10 years together). We know each other. Real well. And because of our one bathroom with a door that doesn't quite shut, everyone has a little too much knowledge. Do other parents have to teach their children to shut the door to pee? Or is that just something we have to do because of our familiar comfort zone and close quarters?

So, do you wanna hear what we were saying? You know you do. Here goes: Ally is drama. All the time. When she's not crying (we're talking literal tears) about some injustice done ("I forgot my spelling words and I'm gonna fail. FAIL! Do you HEAR ME?! FAIL!"), she's butting into everyone's business and mothering them to death.

Emma is a space cadet. She willfully ignores us and when we tell her for the THOUSANDTH time to please pick her coat off of the floor, she continues to stare at her dolls and mumble some curse, I'm sure, on either Lish or me. She is a pig which bugs the crap out of Ally because they will spend all day screaming at each other and "cleaning" their room and two hours later, Emma will have rediscovered all her toys and destroyed it once again.

Luke is defiant and automatically answers "no" to any and all requests. When he doesn't want to take out the trash, pick up his toys or change his clothes, he rolls on the floor and whines like he has kidney stones until Lisha finally uses the "I'll-tell-Dad" threat. And he pees his pants when he's playing Nintendo which results in being grounded for weeks. Which also makes him whine.

Clark, as mentioned before, is still nursing. This causes all kinds of problems like causing Lish to cry out in pain as he chews on her nipples or waking up to get some milk at 4 a.m. He's also taken to hitting Lish when he's frustrated but runs around the corner and hits the first person he sees when I tell him "no."

As we discussed these character flaws and the fact we desperately need a new, larger house, we suddenly sobered as it dawned on both of us that we are reaping what we sowed. In other words, we were the same punks to our parents that our kids are to us. And now our parents were having revenge and probably sitting back giggling with satisfied laughter at the same stuff that drove them crazy.

"I can't wait until they have kids," Lish said after we had told each other our kiddy quirks. "I am going to invite them over, sugar them up with pop and candy, then you'll shake them up until, when we send them home to their parents, they explode all over the place. Then, we'll laugh and laugh and scream, 'YOU DESERVE IT!' Right. In. Their. Faces."

"It is how God intended it, after all," I concurred.

How about you? We know you love your kids, but are you waiting for that day when you can smugly look into their eyes and say, "You were the exact same way. Suffer!"? You know you are.